Rights are not privileges.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Second Amendment rights are "fundamental" to liberty.

The United States of America is a free country because we have limited the power of the government to infringe the rights of the people.

The right to keep and bear arms, like the right to freedom of speech and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, is in the Constitution, the founding document of our country that is the fundamental law of the land.

Rights are not policies. They cannot be revised by each new set of political office-holders.

Rights are not privileges. They cannot be revoked randomly by government officials who decide they no longer want anyone to have them.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said that when rights are "fundamental," states may pass a law that infringes them only if they can show a compelling reason that the law is necessary, and narrowly tailored, to achieve a permissible purpose.

There is a tendency among some public officials to react to a crime or tragedy by calling for new restrictions on the rights of law-abiding people. Some politicians want to be seen as "doing something," even if what they are doing is irrelevant and unhelpful.

We all are horrified by incidents of mass violence, especially those perpetrated at schools by unstable individuals in possession of guns. Medical privacy is important and rights are important, and so are background checks. We have to rely on the best judgment of medical professionals, school officials, law enforcement officials and parents to help us prevent troubled individuals from bringing harm to themselves and others.